


Of Greys and Griefs

by archea2



Series: The Reason for the Unreason [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, But there's catharsis I swear, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 10:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt : "When Sherlock returns to 221B after the Hiatus, everything's going fine until he asks John to take him to see Lestrade. John takes him to the grave next to Sherlock's."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Greys and Griefs

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly revised version of an older fill, crossposted here to launch "The Reason for the Unreason", a series of drabbles and ficlets featuring Greg and Sherlock. I thought I’d better start with the angstiest chick in the brood!

Whoever chose the headstone made a sorry job of it. It's flat, dull-edged, heavy, and, to Sherlock’s eyes, a disgracing shade of grey. It brings Lestrade's marriage to his mind.

 

"Look," says the man at his side, with a tiny dab of tongue across dry lips. "It's really not what you think."

 

 But Sherlock is scanning the inscription. " _Well done, good and faithful servant_. Surely not the Met ? No, of course not. The missus, kindly proving me right. Bitterness _is_ a paralytic."

 

The red of evening gathers in the sky, pooling over the dry stones, the clotted grass. Sherlock stands still.

 

"No, what I mean is - look, it wasn't that sniper. Your trick did it, did the, ah. The trick. Splendidly. No, it was an accident."

 

"Or that's one name for it."

 

"Sherlock." John's voice is quiet, but Sherlock can hear the crack, the preliminary beat of warning.

 

"Six weeks," he lashes out, his cry mangled with fury. John, unwarned, trips a step back. "Only six weeks to last out, and at the end? A job back, for starters. A press hailing, a public apology from every top brass under the sun, a return, a revenge, a, a, a _crowning_. Everything, I was going to set everything right. Was it so very hard, waiting for me?"

 

"Not half," the voice lashes back, silencing him. Taking him back to the garden of gravity, the graves, dulled by their weight, their own grey answer stronger and longer-lasting than the one lie, the black stone among them, still bearing his name.

 

Sherlock doesn’t want to see the graves.

 

And so he concentrates on turning his head, and, harder and farther than he has ever pulled in his prior life, reading the scene. It could be the cold pulse of moon (it was late in the day when John flagged them a cab) that has turned his friend's hair ashen and his shoes unglistening, unless it was the waiting. Sherlock thinks some more.

 

"A heart attack. Street accident?"

 

"Car crash. The M5 exit to Bristol." Sherlock waits for more. "Do you see now? Not your fault."

 

"I see."

 

"No you don’t. You’re not seeing. Not yours, never, not Moriarty, not this, not me. Nor mine. Not now, not before. Never, love."

 

"I know! I know!"

 

" _Sherlock_." John's voice, ripping at him across his own cry. "Who are you talking to?"

 

But — "never", Sherlock's heart echoes to Sherlock, and as the clouds part above the stones, and the graveyard stretches once more before his eyes, something turns; something changes. He doesn't notice it directly, because John has taken a step before the stone, holding him tight enough to tug his chin downward, but then the moon is back and makes it possible to see.

 

The grave is silvering.


End file.
